Heroes of War
by MercuryFumes
Summary: .


**I do not own Shingeki no Kyojin. **

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The sounds the three-dimensional maneuver gear made were like those of a gun as they were shot by the Commander. He launched the worn, steel grappling hook into the wall of a tall pine by pulling the trigger on the leather handle of his two blades. The shining blades themselves were able to be discharged so that new, sharp ones could be attached and used. Each soldier had five replacement blades for each side, so that meant that they had one rectangular case on each side. These cases also held the gas canisters that were needed to launch the grappling hooks.

Everything was flying by him in a swirled blur. The hook gripped into the wood like the talons of a great eagle, securing the Commander so he could swing towards the great, man-eating beast. The black serpent-like cable tensed, and he was then able to perform a wide arc, the grappling hook letting go. The Commander repeated this, maneuvering in many ways until finally he was able to see the gigantic thing. It was like a human, only more uglier and naked. It had no genitals; their form of reproduction was unknown. The most detailed part of its body was its face. This one had a mop of black hair, and the eyes the size of a large dog. It held the expression of a small, shy child, except it wasn't one. It had a stomach that bulged like that of a pregnant woman's, but it was charging straight for the squad.

Of course, the squad members weren't afraid or intimidated by the titan. It was one of the smaller they've encountered that day, only standing at about eight metres. The bloated titan came barreling towards them, making the ground shake like a frightened herd of cattle. The Commander couldn't help but smirk for a moment at the titan and how well his squad reacted to it. That's how they were trained. Wait until the titan was identifiable and see if it wanted to attack the humans or not, and with this one, it turned out to have no interest in them at all. They called these types of titans aberrant titans, or abnormal titans. Reaching towards his belt, the Commander retrieved a small, pistol-like gun and loaded a black cartridge. He then aimed it upwards into the sky, alerted the other soldiers to cover their ears, and fired it as he covered his ears with his hand and upper arm of the raised arm. The flare shot off into the air with a loud boom, an ear-puncturing ringing hanging around for a short while afterwards. As he watched it fly up into the air, the Commander traced the jet black trail in the sky with his hard, cold blue eyes. Perfect. Absolutely perfect.

As they flew along through the forest, Commander Erwin Smith of the Scouting Legion, which was only made up of about three hundred soldiers, kept his eye out for that short, short-tempered male. It was about ten or twenty minutes once Erwin's squad was able to locate the slender soldier zipping through the woods on his own. He had been told to go off to scope out the woods that, whoever entered them, seemed to be consumed by its eerie darkness. Erwin flew along, his moves fluid and seeming oh, so natural. Of course they were. He'd been using the 3-dimensional maneuver gear for many years now, and the skill came quite easily to the hard-faced man. Soon enough, his blue eyes caught sight of his fellow comrade and he hesitated mid-swing to switch directions.

Right as the Commander was going to launch himself towards his black-haired partner, a hand the colour of raw meat swiped at the black-haired male. It was gigantic, the index finger itself measuring it about six or seven feet long. He was able to move, but not fast enough. The hand caught one of his two cables, as well as the Commander's cable, dragging them down to the ground. Erwin was jerked roughly to the right and sent flying towards a mangle of brush, trees, and grass. He didn't see where the other went, but immediately after hitting the ground he felt a splitting pain in his side. Figuring that it was just from hitting the ground, the Commander went to move but let out a hiss and looked down. There, wedged into his side like a knife in butter, was his blade, the bottom half where it clicked into his trigger handle having snapped off in the fall. The blond ran his hand along the cool edge of the blade, not minding or caring that the metal was nipping at his skin and making small cuts. He was more focused on finding out how deep it was. After a moment, the male figured out that it was only an inch or two deep and, although it hurt tremendously, he wiggled it as gently as if it were a delicate piece of lace caught caught in between a book and a table until it fell from his side. Immediately after, the Commander ripped off his forest green cape and shoved it against his wound. His 3-dimensional maneuver gear had been completely destroyed in the fall, leaving him to limp in the direction of wherever his comrade had fallen.

After what seemed like forever, the wounded Commander saw a hint of gleaming metal near the base of a tree. Fortunately, it was Erwin's comrade, unfortunately, he was in a worse state than the Commander himself.

"Erwin..." the male croaked, his voice shaky. As Erwin approached him, the taller, blond male's stomach dropped. He couldn't panic, no. That would only work the other up even more. He kneeled next to him to evaluate the damage, wincing as his own wound burned painfully. The black-haired soldier's facial expressions made him look bored. They always did, but Erwin could sense that he was scared. Erwin would be, too. His comrade must have also fallen on his blade, because it was sticking up through his torso. He wasn't bleeding externally, which was somewhat good, but the slimmer was in intense pain.

"Levi, can you..?" the Commander asked, knowing Levi, his comrade, would know what he meant. Levi just shook his head.

"I can't move my legs. I can't move anything below wherever the hell it is," he said, "And I can't feel anything. It's all numb... I bet I crapped myself." At the last comment, Erwin could only chuckle lightly at his comrade. It wasn't even a laughing chuckle. It was more of a sad one. Levi reached down and started to wiggle the blade around, trying to get it to break off of the trigger handle beneath him so he could pull it out. Erwin knew he had to stop the other, but Levi would only fight the Commander verbally and stress himself out, so he let him do whatever. He got it to break and ripped the blade stupidly out of his midsection, starting to bleed pretty violently. Levi grabbed his cape, thinking it would help the bleeding somewhat. It was beading down his hands and sides, the crimson glittering in whatever light was shining through the rather thick canopy of the trees above them. Levi looked down at his own 3DMG, sighing almost silently as he saw how mangled it was. Looking back to the Commander, Levi had the face of someone who was going to throw up.

"Erwin, thank you... For everything. For everything you've given me in the past few years we've spent together fighting these ass muchers." Levi said in a tight voice. He was starting to fade in and out, going silent for a moment and wavering in his place. The blond Commander could only nod, knowing Levi knew he meant the same. There was a sound behind them, and when Erwin turned around to look, he frowned internally. Making its way through the trees was the titan that had slapped them out of the air. It was taller than the aberrant titan by at least eight metres, and instead of looking fleshy, this one looked like a human with no skin. You could see its muscles and tendons, and it had hair. The titan also had breasts, but no nipples. She wasn't like the other titans, no. These types of titans were called titan shifters and, well, they were humans who had the ability to shift into a titan.

The female titan was staring down at Erwin and Levi, whom the Commander had noticed had fallen unconscious. There was no helping the smaller male anymore, he had lost too much blood for them to save him, and Erwin and Levi both knew that. Turning his attention back to the female titan, the Commander readied himself for whatever may come, whether that be death or something just as significant. The titan kneeled down, still towering over the human, and reached down to pick him up. It was painful, yes, but Erwin just focused on keeping his head until his end came. This was his job; he had had to sacrifice himself for humanity no matter what happened. In an instant, however, it all came to his death. The titan raised Erwin up to her mouth, and bit down, her huge teeth crushing the Commander's ribcage and back, and it made his organs gush out of his sides. Erwin let out a pained cry, but he was relieved to find that the crushing was was cut short when the female titan opened her mouth to pull him out. She flung him down to the ground again, and when he landed, Erwin's skull struck a knob on the tree. It made a sickening crunch, but left the Commander conscious, still. He looked at Levi's graying corpse, and just laid there awaiting his death. Levi and Erwin's missions had been fulfilled and they could finally rest.


End file.
